Hi Manjeet!

I know that hypnotherapy can be hugely helpful in overcoming alcoholism, since I have seen it work. I'd suggest that you work in conjunction with a therapist or counselor, though. The drinking is pretty serious self-medicating, and that means that there is a cause of pain deep under it all. If you just wipe away drinking as an option (using whatever methods, even healthy ones), there will be a follow-on crisis as the root of the matter gets exposed.

That kind of thing is usually a handful for a hypnotherapist, and can require months or years to fully heal and address. If you work with a therapist or counselor, you can super-charge the progress and help directly with the right issues and support as they come up. Meanwhile, your client will have the long-term support and specialty addiction counseling that is needed for a sure success here.

Good luck! By the way - working with local psychotherapists, psychiatrists, MFT's and counselors this way is a terrific way to gain visibility in the professional community. It worked well for me and really expanded my practice.

Hi Manjeet,

Despite the use of the term "habitual" this is still a "too much" behavior and I'd go with the full 5-PATH for it.

The client may fully believe that this is a habit, or he may be rationalizing it as a habit, but it sounds like a full-scale alcohol problem.

I'd keep referring to it as a habit, if that's what the client wants to call it, but I'd go through 5-PATH, explaining that AR was "finding the causes of the habit" and FOO was "dealing with external things that support the habit" and FOS was "dealing with internal things that support the habit." That way it's presented to the client in a non-confrontational way because you're still using the term "habit" when you address the behavior. If you tell him it's not a habit, but alcoholism or an addiction to alcohol, then he may rebel against that and not cooperate. If you keep it in the same terms he's comfortable with, he's more likely to cooperate and you're also building rapport.

Remember from class -- our clients often have no idea what's really going on, so we have to figure it out for ourselves.


All the best,
Scott